Two weeks ago, disc was a crappy spec that had to work really hard to achieve 75-80% of a holypriest output, and spending the same mana in doing so, while offering nothing that helped current content raidfights. Now, disc is playing even with monks and gaining mana like it's WoTLK all over again (slight exaggeration).

Holypriest is currently on the bottom of the healing barrel, as tradition dictates, but it isn't by much and I cannot proclaim the spec "bad" or even "comparatively bad". The holy burst is really amazing, HPS is really good. The only limiter of the spec, mana, is manageable even while not overgearing content, though I wouldn't be saying no to it being 10% less tight. But yeah, I'm pretty happy as holy at least. The chakra buffs in 5.1 should put the spec above druids, at the cost of really highlighting how much chakra sucks. I'm honestly more piqued by the long-term prospect of Chakra getting a look-over than anything else from that buff.

As many have said: Different fights need healers with different strengths.
But if you really want the most OP healer out there, look no further than the DK.

Then you're not looking well enough. All heroic HoF logs are dominated by disc priests, both 10 and 25. Are you talking about normal modes? Then why the emphasis on "hard" fights? The definition of "hard" is "heroic". And disc priests are awesome there.

Normal mode Garalon logs are full of monks because a) monks are overtuned and b) not every class excels on every fight.

That's not what I was responding to; I was responding to the claim that "Disc are second HPS wise", which is nowhere even close to true.

Anyway, Vizier, Blade Lord, and Wind Lord are all fights with easily predictable massive aoe burst damage, perfect for disc priests (as a holy pala I'm also very jealous of disc's ability to do a lot of healing while moving). I'm not going to say that they're not good (or borderline overpowered here, compared to other classes on these fights), but when it comes to constant damage taken that needs to be handled by raw HPS they're nowhere near the top. It would be absurd if they were, since then they'd be superior to every single healer in every possible way.

My main is a Holy priest. I am currently 16/16 normal mode and 6/16 HM. We are not complete fails, we all know what we are doing. There are very few fights where, me as holy, am not in the top 2...and usually first. We occasionally run a monk. We ALWAYS run a holy and disc, druid, 2 shaman, and a pally.

While none of us ever run away with the meters (never a significant gap). It is almost always holy, shaman, druid, shaman, disc, pally in that order. And before you say the disc is fail, i assure you, they are not. Many of you may know them from livestreams. Anyway. Healing is based alot on ability. I find it funny when I see so many posts saying holy sucks, when some of us are very successful at it.

My main is a Holy priest. I am currently 16/16 normal mode and 6/16 HM. We are not complete fails, we all know what we are doing. There are very few fights where, me as holy, am not in the top 2...and usually first. We occasionally run a monk. We ALWAYS run a holy and disc, druid, 2 shaman, and a pally.

While none of us ever run away with the meters (never a significant gap). It is almost always holy, shaman, druid, shaman, disc, pally in that order. And before you say the disc is fail, i assure you, they are not. Many of you may know them from livestreams. Anyway. Healing is based alot on ability. I find it funny when I see so many posts saying holy sucks, when some of us are very successful at it.

I'm not agreeing with the poster you quoted but no, but you're quite wrong. A good player can make any class perform at a high level, but that doesn't mean a good player can make any class perform at the level necessary for certain fights. And you mention "some of us are successful at holy" - Well, I guess if you define successful as 6/16 HM then you're doing fine, but at a top 50 or top 100 guild level class balance becomes a much greater issue. I'm currently casual, but I raided with a top 50 world guild for T11-T12 and the differences between priest/pally and druid/shaman were HUGE. Shamans were brought to raids to be totem bitches. I managed to get a raid spot as druid, but was required to go boom quite often because of how much stronger pallies/priests were. Go look at WoL. Mistweavers and holy pallies are pretty much dominating, with disc having high ranks on some fights. You don't see holy priests top 10 on a single fight. If that doesn't tell you they're behind then I don't know what would...

Anyway, Vizier, Blade Lord, and Wind Lord are all fights with easily predictable massive aoe burst damage, perfect for disc priests (as a holy pala I'm also very jealous of disc's ability to do a lot of healing while moving). I'm not going to say that they're not good (or borderline overpowered here, compared to other classes on these fights), but when it comes to constant damage taken that needs to be handled by raw HPS they're nowhere near the top. It would be absurd if they were, since then they'd be superior to every single healer in every possible way.

Constant aoe damage that needs to be handled by raw hps is not the weak point of disc priests. Resto druids are the ones struggling in that case.

Priests can smite to get archangel, and spam poh with +%25 healing done for 20 secs + cascade and pom for some very good raw healing. If the constant damage isn't throughout the whole fight then hello spirit shell. Priests are not as good as shamans and paladins on spot healing or single target healing(anymore) and that is pretty much it.

I'm not agreeing with the poster you quoted but no, but you're quite wrong. A good player can make any class perform at a high level, but that doesn't mean a good player can make any class perform at the level necessary for certain fights. And you mention "some of us are successful at holy" - Well, I guess if you define successful as 6/16 HM then you're doing fine, but at a top 50 or top 100 guild level class balance becomes a much greater issue. I'm currently casual, but I raided with a top 50 world guild for T11-T12 and the differences between priest/pally and druid/shaman were HUGE. Shamans were brought to raids to be totem bitches. I managed to get a raid spot as druid, but was required to go boom quite often because of how much stronger pallies/priests were. Go look at WoL. Mistweavers and holy pallies are pretty much dominating, with disc having high ranks on some fights. You don't see holy priests top 10 on a single fight. If that doesn't tell you they're behind then I don't know what would...

So by your logic a class would have to be in the top 10 ranks to be considered a viable healing spec? In that case, monks would lead nearly every single fight. There are some fights were it is pretty rare to see any other healing class even in the top 200. Just because we don't 'rank' on fights does not mean we are crap healers. The huge amount of aoe damage on some fights lends itself to massive aoe healing, a spot where holy priests have been good at for some time if played correctly. Holy has never been a good single target healer.

6/16 HM considering we ARE in the top 100 for 25 mans, and we sometimes run TWO holy priests for some fights. 6HM at this point is nothing to sneeze at. Honestly, i believe the people who say holy priests are not viable raid healers are the same people who have no idea how to play or gear them. Just because we aren't in the "top 10" ranks in no way makes us a bad choice to bring to raids.

I'm not agreeing with the poster you quoted but no, but you're quite wrong. A good player can make any class perform at a high level, but that doesn't mean a good player can make any class perform at the level necessary for certain fights. And you mention "some of us are successful at holy" - Well, I guess if you define successful as 6/16 HM then you're doing fine, but at a top 50 or top 100 guild level class balance becomes a much greater issue. I'm currently casual, but I raided with a top 50 world guild for T11-T12 and the differences between priest/pally and druid/shaman were HUGE. Shamans were brought to raids to be totem bitches. I managed to get a raid spot as druid, but was required to go boom quite often because of how much stronger pallies/priests were. Go look at WoL. Mistweavers and holy pallies are pretty much dominating, with disc having high ranks on some fights. You don't see holy priests top 10 on a single fight. If that doesn't tell you they're behind then I don't know what would...

when the fuck has 6/16HM this early into an expansion not been classed as successful :s

So by your logic a class would have to be in the top 10 ranks to be considered a viable healing spec?

Actually, that isn't what I said. I said "they're behind." For your progression maybe they're fine. Do you see top 10 guilds running holy priests during progression? If not then it's obvious they need a tweak(which they're getting in 5.1, now why would they be getting tweaked if they're "fine?"

Originally Posted by 4dahorde

In that case, monks would lead nearly every single fight. There are some fights were it is pretty rare to see any other healing class even in the top 200. Just because we don't 'rank' on fights does not mean we are crap healers. The huge amount of aoe damage on some fights lends itself to massive aoe healing, a spot where holy priests have been good at for some time if played correctly. Holy has never been a good single target healer.

Priests don't have the POTENTIAL right now to be up where monks/pallies/disc are. You don't seem to grasp that concept. If they did there would be consistent, highly parsed priests. Do you think there's more monk healers or more priest healers raiding? The answer is obvious, yet the lesser played class is dominating the other.

Originally Posted by 4dahorde

6/16 HM considering we ARE in the top 100 for 25 mans, and we sometimes run TWO holy priests for some fights. 6HM at this point is nothing to sneeze at. Honestly, i believe the people who say holy priests are not viable raid healers are the same people who have no idea how to play or gear them. Just because we aren't in the "top 10" ranks in no way makes us a bad choice to bring to raids.

As I said, for YOUR level of raiding holy priests might be enough to get you by, but the top guilds choosing not to bring the holy priest clearly shows they're under-tuned. You're right though, maybe your guild has better and more knowledgeable players than Paragon and Blood Legion. They must not "have any idea how to play or gear them." lol.

If you like nitpicking, Jhazrun was holy for WotE... It's not like people don't switch to the 'more useful' spec for a particular fight, depending on their needs. If anything, the choices of the top-of-the-top should matter less, because they usually do what they do for a particular reason and not because "Holy's behind, I rather go disc for this.".

I seriously doubt the top <1% of the player base determines if a particular spec is under tuned. I also never remotely eluded to out group being better than the top world guilds. Most of the top guilds made the decision to not run holy priests before MoP was even released due to the way they were in the beta. Like the above poster stated, some of these top guilds are stacking monks because they are overpowered, this does not mean that holy is underpowered, only goes to show that 1 or 2 other classes are performing very well on some fights. He is also correct where there HAVE been some top guilds that run holy on rare occasions.

The 'lesser played class' right now is also a very new class that is WAY overpowered, based on your logic of if holy is where it should be, why is getting buffed would hold true to why if monks are alright why are they slowly getting nerfed?

No where does the top <1% of players determine a class to be under powered. It only shows that some are OP in certain situations. Which class stacking, as well as skill, makes killing these HM bosses early easier to do.

I have also nowhere in my comments stated that holy doesn't need a buff or 2. I am happy to see them coming. But from a fairly succesful holy priest already, it is only going to help me and my raid group.

I also DID look up logs, I actually do alot of log analysis, there are NOT many fights were pallies are doing insane numbers. Disc is only as good as the other healers in the group because of the way spirit shell works. While the disc is blanketing spirit shell, and doing zero healing, it is up to the other healers to take up that ~20 sec of no healing from the disc. Considering there are several fights with enough time in between high aoe phases, this gives disc a perfect chance to blanket insane spirit shell absorbs.

Holy could certainly use a tweak or 2, but we are no where near the bottom of the healing tree, as my original reply post to someone showing there opinion that they were, was intended to show.

I seriously doubt the top <1% of the player base determines if a particular spec is under tuned.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of your post because I have better things to do than to argue with nonsense babble, but yes, the top 1% of players are what cause class adjustments. This is true for both pve and pvp. Do you really think a world 200 or 300 guild, or lower, is going to sit their holy priest because he can't top charts? The more competitive it gets, the more the differences show.

*Oh, and for the record, I've healed quite a bit of content on both my pally and priest. Holy priest just feels weak. As you previously said, you have terrible tank/single target heals, thus are stuck to almost exclusively aoe healing. I even changed my gear set-up to mastery/spirit to try making holy viable and it just felt awful(and the meters showed it). And yes, I know how to play holy :P I've had nice ranks in the past on every healer I ever played, but it only took one raid for me to go back to disc. Who knows, maybe after the buff holy will be viable.

Disc is only as good as the other healers in the group because of the way spirit shell works. While the disc is blanketing spirit shell, and doing zero healing, it is up to the other healers to take up that ~20 sec of no healing from the disc. Considering there are several fights with enough time in between high aoe phases, this gives disc a perfect chance to blanket insane spirit shell absorbs.

Stating the obvious here, but do remember that spirit shell results in dmg the other healers WON'T have to heal, meaning the argument that they are picking up your slack doesn't work.

Lets say for example that you are on the last phase of Imperial Vizier Zor'lok (lets assume for the sake of argument that it's normal, i have no experience on heroic) and he uses Force and Verve (i believe? when you stack under shields). You have no time to pre-shield, people have already started taking dmg, just before or right after the first or second pulse your spirit shell comes off cooldown, what to do?

You should probably pop it in this situation. Yes, other healers will have to top people off, but your raw healing goes up and you still have a greater chance of saving people, no?

Stating the obvious here, but do remember that spirit shell results in dmg the other healers WON'T have to heal, meaning the argument that they are picking up your slack doesn't work.

Lets say for example that you are on the last phase of Imperial Vizier Zor'lok (lets assume for the sake of argument that it's normal, i have no experience on heroic) and he uses Force and Verve (i believe? when you stack under shields). You have no time to pre-shield, people have already started taking dmg, just before or right after the first or second pulse your spirit shell comes off cooldown, what to do?

You should probably pop it in this situation. Yes, other healers will have to top people off, but your raw healing goes up and you still have a greater chance of saving people, no?

Please correct me if i'm wrong... :P

lol yeah I wasn't going to point out every inaccuracy in his post, but you're right. The whole point of spirit shell is it prevents people from dipping as far as they normally would, and can prevent deaths if someone was already low, not to mention it results in less over-healing if used properly. I've been 2-healing everything on my disc and I certainly don't need the other healer to "Carry" me while I'm SS blanketing.

10 man 16/16 normal + 5/6HC and rly do not think disc is bad. On the opposite - started as full holy and now I move to full disc with increasing speed.
With usual semi-hardcore guild you WOULD struggle with enrage timers on HC. You WOULD have trouble with some high damage situations.
Disc answers with ability to pull let´s say damage worth 1/3 of dpser into enrage equation + still is easily first in heals. Brings Spirit Shell absorb utility which helps a lot anywhere you walk on the edge. Exploits any fights with + DMG (but no + healing) and / or targets with +dmg taken (Elegon, Windmaster, Amber shaper...) No, Disc is not bad - Disc has rly big niches he fills - add dps, absorb predictable damage - and when you know what to push, you can top healing charts too.
So stop whining and start practicing

Disc is pretty strong in Heart of Fear (Predictable + Physical damage). They're certainly not the best 'overall' though you can't really call any class the best 'overall' most specs/classes are good at x while others are good at y. Except resto druids, they can F*** off.

I think your guildies are either confusing people complaining how bad disc is in PvP with disc being weak in all parts of the game, or just haven't kept themselves up to date with disc changes at all :s